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>Picture a world where a slew of today's despots (including the current American president) get to live for two, or three human lifespans. What makes the curre

by gruez 1y ago

>Picture a world where a slew of today's despots (including the current American president) get to live for two, or three human lifespans. What makes the current lifespan any more correct than 2x or 3x, or 0.5x of a century or two ago? Given that life expectancy was much shorter a century ago, should we start randomly executing people to keep "the uber-wealthy and powerful" from living too long? That would probably have kept "the current American president" from being in power.

diatone 1y ago
Iiuc it wasn’t a comment about what the perfect lifespan is. It’s expressing a concern about how people in power might apply life extending technologies, like they do many other technologies, to exercise and entrench that power. Or put differently: it’s a request, given limited resources let’s expend effort on a fairer society, not one with longer lived people.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > people in power might apply life extending technologies, like they do many other technologies, to exercise and entrench that power Sure. One of which would be broadly granting access to it. Like, if a country tried to restrict such technology to its leaders, you could probably trigger regime change by simply promising to share the technology in the event of deposement. Every party member who barely missed the cut would become your revolutionary.
  - diatone 1y ago
    That’s possible, I suppose. I think @btbuildem was expressing a personal distaste for other uses of power, and an avulsion to the technology because of that. For example: labor camps.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > @btbuildem was expressing a personal distaste for other uses of power, and an avulsion to the technology because of that Nihilistic Luddism. It works against any argument for making the world a better place. > For example: labor camps ...what's the connection between longevity and labor camps? Empirically, as life expectancies (at birth and in adulthood) have risen, the prevalence of labor camps has gone down. We can see this both longitudinally and between countries.
kiba 1y ago
Uber rich have means of extending their power to the next generation anyway. Look at North Korea. It's stagnant and hardly changed despite changing hand 3 times. Whereas if you live a super long life, you can't afford to be risk averse and hope for a dictator to die of old age and hope that will somehow magically change thing.
thaw13579 1y ago
Life expectancy was shorter a century ago because infant mortality, disease and injury pull the average down. We've done an amazing job of a society pulling up that lower end, but lifespan associated with normal aging is actually fairly stable. For example, Plato lived to be roughly 80 years old.

by gruez 1y ago

diatone 1y ago

Iiuc it wasn’t a comment about what the perfect lifespan is. It’s expressing a concern about how people in power might apply life extending technologies, like they do many other technologies, to exercise and entrench that power. Or put differently: it’s a request, given limited resources let’s expend effort on a fairer society, not one with longer lived people.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> people in power might apply life extending technologies, like they do many other technologies, to exercise and entrench that power Sure. One of which would be broadly granting access to it. Like, if a country tried to restrict such technology to its leaders, you could probably trigger regime change by simply promising to share the technology in the event of deposement. Every party member who barely missed the cut would become your revolutionary.
- diatone 1y ago
  That’s possible, I suppose. I think @btbuildem was expressing a personal distaste for other uses of power, and an avulsion to the technology because of that. For example: labor camps.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > @btbuildem was expressing a personal distaste for other uses of power, and an avulsion to the technology because of that Nihilistic Luddism. It works against any argument for making the world a better place. > For example: labor camps ...what's the connection between longevity and labor camps? Empirically, as life expectancies (at birth and in adulthood) have risen, the prevalence of labor camps has gone down. We can see this both longitudinally and between countries.

kiba 1y ago

Uber rich have means of extending their power to the next generation anyway. Look at North Korea. It's stagnant and hardly changed despite changing hand 3 times. Whereas if you live a super long life, you can't afford to be risk averse and hope for a dictator to die of old age and hope that will somehow magically change thing.

thaw13579 1y ago

Life expectancy was shorter a century ago because infant mortality, disease and injury pull the average down. We've done an amazing job of a society pulling up that lower end, but lifespan associated with normal aging is actually fairly stable. For example, Plato lived to be roughly 80 years old.